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Home / New Zealand

<i>Philippa Stevenson:</i> City bypass beetle heaven

6 Aug, 2003 12:15 PM4 mins to read

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COMMENT

It must be one of New Zealand's most unlikely, least known and definitely unsung - tourist attractions.

To the untrained eye it would appear to be a rough collection of mouldering motorcars.

But to anyone bitten by the beetle bug, this place means salvation.

It is the V-Dub Shoppe on Waikato's Marshmeadow Rd,
also known as State Highway 1B, a rat run that gained respectability and its own official moniker when too many people to be ignored took it as an alternative to State Highway 1 through Hamilton.

That means there's more traffic than you'd expect on what would otherwise be a back-country road through little-known Newstead.

For locals and tourists alike, a feature of it is a jumbled accumulation of "seen-better-days" Volkswagen beetles and Kombi vans.

Since the last of the original design, beetles rolled-off the assembly line of the last factory in Mexico last week, there's been a faint hint that beetle-mania has turned up a notch.

V-Dub Shoppe owner Paul Smith said he'd heard of five beetle sales in the last few days, motivated perhaps by the news the production of the 70-year-old design had reached the end of the road.

Then again, a hint of spring always spurs sales, or perhaps some flower power survivors were wanting to re-connect with the hippie era.

As to whether a dearth of beetles will be good for business, 33-year-old Mr Smith is nonchalant.

"It can't do any harm," he said.

He does believe, though, that the long-beloved beetle will be showered with even more affection.

"It'll change from a work car to a hobby car. People will love them more. They might drive around with a few dings in their work car but they'll want their show cars to be perfect."

Smith's own "perfect" cars include a 1954 beetle, a 1958 Kombi truck and a 1975 Westphalia camper, or a big Kombi.

The way to differentiate them from their modern counterparts is to call them air-cooled beetles. Today's new-look VWs are water-cooled.

He describes his lot of not-so functional "People's Cars" - which the local council has been known to frown upon - as "donor vehicles." They are not dumped and he does not dismantle. He recycles.

"They help some other car to survive."

He's not sure how many he's got of the cars inspired by Hitler and designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Perhaps more than 30, less than 100.

Just the other day he helped resuscitate an ailing beetle in India. A passing tourist spotted Smith's roadside sign, stopped in and went away loaded with parts.

"People stop and take pictures all the time. English, Americans, Australians. They ask what a paddock full of cars is doing in the middle of nowhere."

Mr Smith set up in business 14 years ago. Originally he worked on turning beetles into off-road racing cars, because they were naturally built to handle rough road driving.

But it didn't take long before he became a fully accredited VW nutter and was patching up the lame and the sick vehicles of other fanciers.

"I'm like a doctor. I only see them when they are sick but I send them away happy chappies," he said in a manner that leaves you not quite sure whether he means the owners or their cars.

He doesn't know how many of the 21 million VW beetles made worldwide got to New Zealand but admits it would have been wise business planning if he'd bothered to find out the size of the market for himself and the names of the very few others in his recycling line.

He does know the last beetle was imported by a dealer in 1976 and some individuals imported a few up until 1978. After that the safety requirements for new cars made the exercise prohibitive.

But nearby Hamilton appears to be a beetle hotbed and Mr Smith and his three staff have plenty of work.

One job just completed turned out a fully fledged Herbie, an exact lookalike of the star of one of the four movies made by Walt Disney films about a VW beetle called Herbie.

The clients, an intermediate school student and his mother, arrived with the exact specifications of the Herbie of their choice. It has now joined George and Jude in their VW stable.

The "Kraft-durch-Freude-Wagen" or "strength from joy car" looks likely to remain strong for some time to come, at least in the Waikato.

* Email Philippa Stevenson

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